Re: [GKD] The $100 Computer
On Tue, 22 Feb 2005, I wrote: 1. Yes, we can technically make an affordable Information Access Device (IOD). Looking at the cell phone prices and the success of the pay-as-you-go model for instance in Africa, I'd say we can provide a $100 'computer'. All the ingredients are there and most were mentioned: Open Source (Linux in particular), (Very) Thin Clients, systems on chips, cheap wireless networks, affordable flat screen technology, etc. This should have read 'I'd say we can provide a 0 $ computer' when combined with a locally relevant, income generating or income 'liberating' service. I wanted to correct this because it makes an essential difference to the argument. Some people where intrigued by the IOD acronym. I'm affraid that was a typo. It should have been IAD, although we can surely match something to IOD as well... regards - bas ***GKD is solely supported by EDC, a Non-Profit Organization*** To post a message, send it to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To subscribe or unsubscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]. In the 1st line of the message type: subscribe gkd OR type: unsubscribe gkd Archives of previous GKD messages can be found at: http://www.edc.org/GLG/gkd/
Re: [GKD] The $100 Computer: A Polite Scam
On 2/22/05, Edward Cherlin wrote: On Thursday, 10 February 2005, Sam Lanfranco wrote: Dear Colleagues, The $100 computer for those on the other side of the digital divide has once again surfaced in what are mainly self-promoting (occasionally well intended) pronouncements from various quarters. You might enjoy (well, that isn't the right word, but never mind) the recent novel Air by Geoff Ryman, which describes the consequences of dumping every villager in the world on the Net without warning. Of course, it would be a disaster. That's why we don't plan to do it that way. ..snip... Yes, that's where the comparison with Air comes in. Just giving people computers and going away would accomplish less than nothing. Compare, however, the Grameen Bank program for placing cell phones in villages. The villagers are first brought up to a functioning level of literacy, then taught the rudiments of business and banking, and then they get to take out a loan, buy a phone, and start selling minutes. The same, but more so, is an absolute requirement for placing computers in villages. That has always been the real stumbling block - whether it is through the useless unstaffed and unhoused village schools of India, or the political football schools in Pakistan, or elsewhere - there is little incentive to bring literacy/education to the disadvantaged. What sticks in the craw is the unstated assumption that *we* privileged IT-aware people can, on our own, bring blessings to the *stupid* untutored poor. This is why, at Radiophony, we advocate empowering poor people with their own low cost, low power FM stations, where the user devices cost under a dollar in real street prices, and the central dissemination device under $50. At those costs, putting in the extras (training, maintenance, economic wrappers) become feasible on a large scale. Networking those inputs creates synergy and serendipity - who better than the information users to tell *us* what the necessary information devices should be? Or better still, learn to join *us* in developing those devices. -- Vickram ***GKD is solely supported by EDC, a Non-Profit Organization*** To post a message, send it to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To subscribe or unsubscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]. In the 1st line of the message type: subscribe gkd OR type: unsubscribe gkd Archives of previous GKD messages can be found at: http://www.edc.org/GLG/gkd/
Re: [GKD] The $100 Computer
Thanks to Bas Kotterink for summing up some of the key points from the previous emails - it's sometimes hard to keep on top of these discussions. Bas raised as well a few key issues that I think have been only discussed briefly until now, but deserve some more exploration, especially for very low income communities: (1) A computer is only a tool, but never a solution in itself. It's only as relevant to the user as the impact it can make on the user's daily life. This is valid for all communities, in the US or any other country in the world (e.g. Uganda). But the needs of the users vary vastly from community to community around the world. So the question is who can define the needs of these communities in a realistic way that reflects the requirements, priorities and current capabilities of the communities. Only when this is done can the process to design or choose the appropriate technology (if technology is required) begin. If the goals are not crystal clear, ICT deployments turn into a can of worms because the computer is expected to be a magic bullet to solve many problems. Especially due to the fact that the users are less experienced in the use of this technology than say in the US and access to qualified support is much harder in the developing regions. From my experience there is less need for a general purpose computer, but rather for a specific solution (e.g. a clinic needs a health care database; a farmer wants access to prices for his crops in different market towns; a village needs a phone to participate in a local coop; families that take in AIDS orphans require support from the government). (2) While the support of a regular Windows or Linux desktop PC can be very complex, requiring considerable skills (how come I'm always asked by my friends to take a look at their PCs...) a PC that is configured to do only a few tasks is much easier to support. Cell phones demonstrate that very well; while being quite complex these days, they don't require much end-user support as long as the hardware is functioning. So on top of the actual hardware it is important that the software is designed to enable the user to complete the tasks needed to achieve the intended goal with the least amount of prerequisite knowledge and easy to use user-interfaces. This will cut the amount of training and support needed significantly and save money in the long term even if the initial cost of the device is slightly higher. Purse built appliances do require significant less training and ongoing support, while general use appliances do require the user to learn how to use and customize them for their needs as well as how to re-create this customization in case of failures. We work with NGOs that have long standing relations with the communities and can translate the needs of these communities into requirements. We take currently available technology and customize it in a way that is appropriate for these requirements (e.g., source consumer grade hardware and harden it by using no moving parts and create easy-to-use user interfaces). By doing this, we turn general-use appliances into purpose-built appliances. This allows our partner NGOs to focus on their mission and goals and us to focus on what we do best. They provide the training and support of the end users on the ground after the systems are deployed. One last point that Bas made and which I like to underline is that the need is so vast, that this can only be addressed through cooperation and open-source solutions. Mark Mark Summer co-founder, Inveneo web: http://www.inveneo.org phone: 415-867-9751 email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***GKD is solely supported by EDC, a Non-Profit Organization*** To post a message, send it to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To subscribe or unsubscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]. In the 1st line of the message type: subscribe gkd OR type: unsubscribe gkd Archives of previous GKD messages can be found at: http://www.edc.org/GLG/gkd/
Re: [GKD] The $100 Computer: A Polite Scam
Dear Colleagues, I read Sam Lanfranco's message and subsequent postings a bit late but with great interest. I share his suggestion for a reality check. We have heard of experiments similar to the $100 computer before: computer in a hole, simputer for the masses, recycled computers for African schools, cheap laptops for farmers selling coffee, but the context of those for whom the $100 computer is intended seems to win over these interesting technology-driven attempts. No doubt that these experiments as well as PDAs will play a key role in development, but poor people have always reminded us that cheap computers are not on top of their priority lists. Bottom line is that the majority of people who need information and communication the most do not have the skills, reason or money to buy one. (Maybe a few new toy lovers, shop owners or some high-end civil servants would buy and use a $100 computer, but their children will continue using PCs/Macs in the schools.) What about a $10 or less cell phone with basic features, or a $1 radio receiver with trained nurses and teachers in community programming and community journalists trained in how to find business opportunities for a community? I was in a remote African village recently, the farmer who invited us for lunch asked whether I knew if a price of a goat is equal to that of a cell phone. He was talking about a $25 cell phone! Price matters, the cheaper it gets the more one is tempted to buy a computer to take off the power supply and recharge her/his cell phone. But cost has little value without content and context - take for example sub-$200 Worldspace radio receivers that did not sell in mass quantities in Africa as we expected; a good reminder of the link between content, context and cost. It would be good if N. Negroponte sends a couple of the $100 computers to the universities in developing countries, especially in Africa where young people turn them around to speak local languages and talk to radios. The problem is that we have limited number of highly skilled young people. That is not a $100 problem. Thanks. Lishan === Lishan Adam, ICTD Consultant P.O.Box 2308 Addis Ababa [EMAIL PROTECTED] === ***GKD is solely supported by EDC, a Non-Profit Organization*** To post a message, send it to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To subscribe or unsubscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]. In the 1st line of the message type: subscribe gkd OR type: unsubscribe gkd Archives of previous GKD messages can be found at: http://www.edc.org/GLG/gkd/
Re: [GKD] The $100 Computer: A Polite Scam
On Tuesday, 15 February 2005, Pat Hall wrote: This is an interesting posting, and worth unpicking. Sam Lanfranco has just posted a wonderfully incisive analysis of these 'offers'. Even the much vaunted Simputer becomes questionable under this analysis. I don't think so. I posted about this earlier. I want to take Sam's analysis a little further. (1) If these computers are so great, why aren't they being sold this side of the digital divide? Can't people in the North/West also benefit from these cheap computers? The answer is that it is not in the interests of the hardware and software suppliers to sell us these, when we have been so willingly (reluctantly?) buying much more expensive equipment, forced upon us in a cycle of planned obsolescence of incompatible bloat-ware releases. So what do they do to prevent it? They supply software that we would not find useful, reduced Windows systems, limited software that will not communicate across the divide. And meanwhile they attack the potential open-sources that do deliver useful software. I yearn for those days when office software was sufficient for my purpose and did not fail from over-weight functionality. That's not They, that's only Microsoft. Hardware people love to sell Linux (Sun, HP, IBM) and BSD (Apple). The other PC vendors don't because Microsoft puts illegal pressure on them. Anyway, you can buy an Amida Simputer from their Web site, www.amidasimputer.com. There has been no mad rush to buy them, which is why no large corporation has picked them up. Sharp tried to sell its own Linux-based handheld, the Zaurus, at retail in the U.S. a few years ago, and gave up when nobody bought it. (2) The objective of such enterprises is to give voice to the poor and the marginalised, in precisely the same way that literacy programmes can, and local community radio stations can. Sam points this out, but lets emphasise this, enabling access to ICTs is not so much to enable the South to access the 'truths' from the West, Not 'truths', information and access to markets. it is to enable 'truths' to flow the other way. Truths, bah. Humbug!! Most people can't recognize truth when it knocks them over the head. Which it does, every day, and they wonder why it hurts. And to do that means we must recognise linguistic diversity and support and respect that, so that the ICTs so cavalierly being offered do work in other languages and scripts, and that there are translation paths between languages, and there is support for those many who are not literate. As the Simputer does, in fact, for languages of India and Bhutan. Are you aware of the number of projects to localize Linux into African and Asian languages? I'm working with some of them. Would you like me to send you a copy of the Unicode HOWTO that I just wrote? Have you seen my Unicode Conference papers on these issues? Obliterating the Digital Divide 24th Unicode Conference Proceedings, 2003. http://www.unicode.org/iuc/iuc24/a345.html Completing Unicode 3.2 Support in Free Software, 24th Unicode Conference Proceedings, 2003. http://www.unicode.org/iuc/iuc24/a304.html This is a big enterprise, not a matter for $100 handouts from the West, but an enterprise for us all on both sides of the digital divide to combine our expertises and make it happen. Handouts? What handouts? The deal is to sell these computers, and to train people to use them effectively. Pat Hall, Global Initiative for Local Computing Limerick University Ireland and Open University UK URL, please. Never mind. (Google is your friend.) http://www.localisation.ie/ Under the [Official Languages Act 2003], government information has to be made available in both English and Ireland but currently there's no software that runs in Irish. There's only a lightly localised version of Windows, [Reinhard Schuler, director of the LRC] noted. Inexcusable. Why aren't they using Linux? Your people can localise it themselves. UNDP is writing a Linux localisation HOWTO, and dozens of countries in Africa and Asia are doing it. Your people obviously haven't talked to Michael Everson of Evertype.com in Dublin. He can give you everything you need for creating documents in Irish. He wrote the proposals for getting the necessary extra letters supported in Unicode/ISO 10646, including creating fonts with those letters in them. He maintains the Roadmap for future inclusion of writing systems in Unicode/10646, in addition to his paid work creating writing systems and fonts for minority languages around the world. You should hire him. Him and me, both. Please check your facts before posting nonsense to Usenet. I always do.--Beable van Polasm, alt.religion.kibology Edward Cherlin, Simputer Evangelist Encore Technologies (S) Pte. Ltd. The Village Information Society http://cherlin.blogspot.com -- Edward Cherlin Generalist activist--Linux, languages, literacy and more A knot! Oh, do let me help to undo it! --Alice in
